Could the Surface Phone Fold?

Doing some reading and have come across some patent reports from Microsoft. Apparently some patents show a phone that kind of, well, folds up. When folded, it looks like a normal phone. But open it up to stand it up, or reveal a keyboard... plenty of applications there.

I'm not sure about a keyboard being included in it, but it could be more similar to something like this video Samsung showed off 4 years ago, based on their Youm displays. I suspect something closer to this.

Maybe not the rolling screen yet, but the foldable is maybe more likely

Doing some reading and have come across some patent reports from Microsoft. Apparently some patents show a phone that kind of, well, folds up. When folded, it looks like a normal phone. But open it up to stand it up, or reveal a keyboard... plenty of applications there.

Any thoughts?

Was there a possible link to this information somewhere? Save us from searching...

From an engineering point of view (I've been in the industry for +20 years but not in IT)

I love the idea of folding screens or folding anything really. But the engineer in me keeps seeing the issue that any moving part has - breakage. All things that move has a finite time before they break. This is even more true to things that bend without a joint.

I know flex material has come a long way and I may be a bit paranoid in my thinking but that's just me.

What I think would be cool though, thinking from this new paradigm switch to portable office via the phone would be a roll up wired/wireless display. Battery operated.

Lenovo has a prototype "phone" that unfolds into a tablet--would be awesome if Surface Phone did something similar (though would need to look a lot better than this thing). Ignore the unsettling elf voice

Doing some reading and have come across some patent reports from Microsoft. Apparently some patents show a phone that kind of, well, folds up. When folded, it looks like a normal phone. But open it up to stand it up, or reveal a keyboard... plenty of applications there.

Any thoughts?

Samsung and Microsoft co-developed the graphene OLED flexible screen technology. They both co-own the patent.

They made several prototypes, but the obstacle is production. Graphene is very expensive to make. A single screen would costs thousands. Until they come up with a new way to make graphene, for the screen, it won't be cheap enough to produce, sell and make profit.

When eventually they do, both Samsung and Microsoft will no doubt make products. And of course windows is the better tablet OS. The other advantage is graphene is basically indestructible.

There are of course issues with the other parts. Reducing the thickness of those parts will mean sacrificing battery, CPU etc. Its been hard enough to stuff things in phones this size.

Ideally the whole thing would go on graphene. And graphene circuits, and batteries have all been developed at a simple level. That would essentially be a single "perspex bit of paper", with your computer in it.

Some time away, the "tablet book", and 'scroll phone", even longer the "computer paper". Of course we have proto's of the former from I believe 2013 in samsungs and microsofts dual demo. But actually making graphene cheap - if and when it happens, it will have bigger impacts than merely computing. It can be used for nanomanufacturing, super materials, chemical manufacturer, cleaning, water de-salination and more.

My beat is 5-10 years before graphene manu comes down. At which point it will probably be an elite product for some years, like the mobile phone was in the 80s.

Your estimate is probably right, although I'd sure love to see something in MY house sooner than 5-10 years. Who knows, like you said, depends how fast they can cut material sourcing and production costs!